With fall approaching and school back in session for the kiddos, chicken soup is a comfort for those colder days and will also help fight off those back to school sniffles. Try making this for a light dinner or weekend lunch. Enjoy!

Strain Highlights

Gorilla Glue #4, developed by GG Strains, is a potent hybrid strain that delivers heavy-handed euphoria and relaxation, leaving you feeling “glued” to the couch. Its chunky, resin-covered buds fill the room with pungent earthy and sour aromas inherited from its parent strains, Chem’s Sister, Sour Dubb, and Chocolate Diesel. Taking first place in both the Michigan and Los Angeles 2014 Cannabis Cups as well as the High Times Jamaican World Cup, this multiple award-winning hybrid’s supremacy is no longer a secret, and consumers will search far and wide to get their hands sticky with Gorilla Glue #4.

Indica vs. Sativa Cannabis Edibles: Will They Affect You Differently?

Sativa vs. Indica: What Creates the Difference?

There’s widespread consumer consensus around the idea that sativa strains tend to be uplifting while indicas are more often sedating. This effect-based classification has been challenged by taxonomists and scientists alike, but still, many feel that there’s a stark difference between the two that can’t be brushed off as psychosomatic. What then drives the perceived difference?

Botanica’s flagship line of edibles, Spot, is one of few brands to advertise its infused products with indica- or sativa-specific labels. Its production facility is a meticulous warehouse of mixers and machinery, an industrial kitchen pumping out edibles to the beat of music like XXYYXX and Muse. Guiding our hair-netted heads through the facility and between engaged bakers, Lena and Nico of Botanica explained the difference between their sativa and indica products.Continue reading “Indica vs. Sativa Cannabis Edibles: Will They Affect You Differently?”

No, I’m not on some new fad diet. I’m not watching my weight or trying to gain muscles.

I have 21 different food allergies.

Yes, you read that right — 21.

When I was five, I learned the hard way that I was allergic to pecans. Over the next few years, I discovered that this allergy wasn’t just pecans but that it extended to all tree nuts.

When I was 11, my family and I thought I was lactose intolerant. Every time I would eat something with dairy in it, I would spend the rest of the day in the bathroom. Lucky for me, there were pills for that: Lactaid. You could take the lactase enzyme when your body stopped replacing it. It didn’t always work, but I chalked that up to eating more lactose than I had the enzymes to break down. This didn’t stop me from eating whatever I wanted, so long as it didn’t include nuts.

New research published this week in The Lancet Psychiatry found that American cannabis consumption rose from 10.4 percent to 13.3 percent from 2002 to 2014. Which isn’t all that much, considering how much social attitudes and legal restrictions changed during that time.

But here’s the interesting takeaway from the study. While consumption rose three percent, cannabis abuse actually fell nearly 30 percent during that same time period. In 2002, 16.7 percent of past-year cannabis consumers fit the criteria for dependence, while in 2014, that number had fallen to just 11.9 percent of past-year cannabis consumers.

There’s been a bit of gluten-free backlash lately, but this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. A recent poll found that nearly 30 percent of U.S. adults say they’re trying to go gluten-free, and Googling the term generates more than 95 million results. If you’re on the gluten-free bandwagon, either because you must avoid gluten due to celiac disease, or because you think you may be sensitive, here are five new bits of info you should know.

Gluten may not be the only culprit in celiac disease.
A recent study from researchers at Columbia University concluded that wheat proteins beside gluten may also trigger problematic symptoms in people with celiac disease. While gluten is the primary type of protein in wheat, a substantial number of study subjects with celiac disease had an immune reaction to five groups of non-gluten proteins. In other words, there is likely more to understanding celiac disease than scientists currently know, so stay tuned.

Strain Highlights

Don’t let its intense name fool you: AK-47 will leave you relaxed and mellow. This sativa-dominant hybrid delivers a steady and long-lasting cerebral buzz that keeps you mentally alert and engaged in creative or social activities. AK-47 mixes Colombian, Mexican, Thai, and Afghani varieties, bringing together a complex blend of flavors and effects. While AK-47’s scent is sour and earthy, its sweet floral notes can only be fully realized in the taste.

Created in 1992 by Serious Seeds, AK-47 has won numerous Cannabis Cup awards around the world for its soaring THC content. For those hoping to fill their gardens with this resinous, skunky hybrid, growers recommend an indoor environment with either soil or hydroponic setups. AK-47 is easy to grow and has a short indoor flowering time of just 53 to 63 days, while outdoor plants typically finish toward the end of October.

A prospective outdoor gardener in a place without any viable soil faces a dilemma. Purchasing and moving large amounts of topsoil might compromise a secret location you’ve scoped out for cannabis growing, either in your own yard or in the wilderness.

Instead hauling in literally tons of topsoil, you can make do with a few bales of straw instead. Cannabis grown directly into a conditioned bale of straw has everything it needs as long as you keep adding fertilizer or compost. After harvest, you can either compost the straw or use it as a soil amendment in the hopes of one day planting directly into the ground.

We’re often told to look on the bright side, but for some of us negative thinking can have positive effects.

It’s an age-old question: Do you see the glass as half-full or half-empty? Often, those who call it half-full are said to be optimists, positive people who smile easily and find the good in most situations. Those who view the glass as half-empty are thought of as pessimists, Negative Nellies who wear a frown on their face. But perhaps that frown doesn’t need fixing. Half-fullers aren’t as happy as we believe, plus they might be a little thirsty.For decades, we’ve been told the antidote to cynicism is hopeful thinking. Smiling will make you feel better. Thinking confidently makes good things happen. Positive thinking or doing things to make us feel happier may have started with Victorian philosopher William James’ As If theory, that our actions, rather than our thinking, influence how we feel. One of the core ideas is that forcing a smile increases happiness, or at least makes you feel more positive, whereas most people see this in the reverse; I feel happy, so I’ll smile.Not necessarily.Continue reading “The Surprising Upside to Negative Thinking”

The grass might be greener on the other side of legalization, but it’s definitely cheaper. According to Bloomberg, the average legal marijuana user spends only $647 per year on weed.

A cannabis intelligence firm, Headset Inc., reviewed approximately 40,000 dispensary purchases made in Washington State from September 2014 to July 2016 and found that the average recreational pot consumer is a 37-year-old man who spends $647 annually on bud, with approximately 19.5 days between purchases.

Bloomberg reports that while the average age of legal marijuana consumers is 37, millennials make most of the pot purchases, with over 50 percent of consumers aged 21 to 34. According to the data, customers in their twenties spend an average of $27 per purchase but make dispensary visits more often than other generations, a median of every 16 days. Comparatively, those in their thirties visit every 18.2, and those in their forties visit every 20 days, with the median spend per trip also increasing with age.